#fucking explodes

It was only that night did Mallory try and escape. She couldn’t sleep, and it was eerily quiet, the only light coming from the stones in the back...why were they glowing anyways? It was a pale blue glow, shining from delicate carvings in the rock. Mallory sat up, sitting in the near dark for a while. She could hear breathing from across the room. She could see the vague shape of Atmeas sleeping in a sitting position, but she didn’t know where the other two were.

She slowly stood up, lifting her hand up to cover her yawn as she shuffled to the exit, her entire body feeling like lead. It was cold outside, the air biting at her face and hands as she walked into what was like a platform, made of the same wood as the interior. Her eyes fell onto a light blue glow that came from above, and she craned her neck to look up, tilting her head so her hair was out of her eyes. Mallory felt such a sense of…awe wash over her, her breathing catching in her throat and the cold vanishing for just a mere second as she stared up. This tree was huge. It looked like multiple trees had formed into one, sections of wood twisting into each other and spreading out again at the top, a light blue glow coming from within it and shining through the leaves, just bright enough that it illuminated her for a bit whilst not being blinding.

She stood like this for a while, staring at it as the cold continued to bite at her face and neck, jumping a bit when she heard a scuffle against the wood. To her left, Ulthane was sitting down, his hammer resting on his legs, and she almost ran back inside had she not noticed his breathing. It was deep, slow, like he was…asleep. His eyes were shut, his shoulders moving slowly as he slept, and she noticed how his ears kept flicking, as if he were subconsciously waiting for something to happen. …was he waiting for something back to happen? He was probably sleeping there to guard the tree. He seemed to be in a shallow sleep; she couldn’t see his eyes moving under his eyelids at all. The idea of escape came back to her, and for the first time, she seemed hesitant with that whole matter, and a mental game of tennis in her head between her two options began. On one hand, she had been fed and given a place to sleep. On the other…her dad. Her mom. Her sister. They were probably still out there. No. No there was no “probably”, they HAD to still be out there, right??? Afterall, she had managed to survive this long, so could her family. Mallory felt her gut twist into a knot as she tried to reason with herself, she needed to find them. She glanced at Ulthane again, keeping her eyes on him as she slowly began to back away, inching closer to what looked to be stairs, her legs shaking as she tried to keep her steps quiet, making sure she didn’t awaken the sleeping maker. This was fine, she could do this…right? As soon as she was confident that he wouldn’t see her if he woke up, she ran. Mallory nearly stumbled over herself a few times, struggling to see in the pitch dark as she ran along one of the main wooden roots. I should’ve waited until it was daytime- but then I’d have no chance of getting out of that tree.

Mallory hadn’t convinced herself that those three giants hadn’t been evil, that it hadn’t been some sick ploy or trick. She was safe now. Safe from being stuck in a corner she couldn’t escape. She kept running until it felt like the cold air burned her lungs, gasping for breath as she slowed down, breathing heavy as it felt like everything she had done had just crashed down. The burning feeling in her chest didn’t bother her much, the vague memory of playing baseball coming back to her as she gasped in greedy breaths, managing to pull a home run and running into the arms of her friends. A sudden hollow feeling filled her chest…her friends. Her family. Her coach, her teachers, her…all. All of it had crumbled to ash in one day. She could feel her eyes watering, but she quickly reached up and rubbed her eyes, taking in a shaky breath. No time for crying. She had to figure out what to do, and her voice came out in a shaky, broken whisper, one that scared herself a bit. “…my gun.” And here came another sickening hollow feeling, she had left her father’s gun back at the tree. But she didn’t dare even try to go back to get it, she wasn’t going to risk not having the chance to escape again. She felt guilty. Guilty, cold, tired, and sick. She felt like she was going to throw up, her stomach twisting and churning as she slipped off one of the roots and onto the concrete, the eerie silence of it all felt too loud, too overwhelming, and it was now that she noticed that the sun was beginning to come up, orange tones washing over the dull, scraggly landscape of the ruined city. Mallory’s face felt numb by the time the sun had risen enough for her to properly see again. She was just trying to get as far away as she could away from the tree before anyone could notice she was gone; she was already making a mental list of everything she would need. She needed a new weapon, maybe she could get some rebar or a blunt weapon of the sorts, she needed food and water, and she needed a safe place to rest for that night. …where were the monsters? She hadn’t heard a scuffle, a roar, a scream or anything; nothing to show that she wasn’t alone. Mallory found herself slowing to a stop as she slowly looked around, spinning in a full circle as she tried to find anything that showed she wasn’t alone. Usually monsters would be crawling about, small ones that usually left her alone or didn’t notice her presence, or the big ones that hissed and wanted her gutted alive, this wasn’t…normal. She continued walking, her vision blurry and watering as she kept going. She hadn’t slept much at all last night, her exhaustion slowly creeping back as she traversed the broken sidewalk, yawning into her hand again as she shuffled along.  Her exhaustion was quickly erased and replaced with fear as something that felt like cold metal gripped her good arm, a metal-plated hand quickly clamping over her mouth as she was dragged into a building from behind. She immediately began to thrash; any screams or yells of fear were muffled as her heels scrapped against the broken concrete in an attempt to stop whatever kidnapping this was.

“Shush don’t scream. Hey. Don’t scream. Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Those were the words Mallory heard immediately after being dragged into ruined office building’s lobby, being sat down and turned to face whoever was speaking. He looked to be a human…albeit he was too big to be a normal one, something of that sort, he had a white mask with two yellow eyes that seemed eerily similar to that of a hawk’s, with a scarf around his neck. “…you gonna scream if I let go?” Mallory stared at him, her mind racing as she tried to decipher if she should be reacting like this was a life-or-death situation. She stared at him for a long moment, his hand still clamped over her mouth, and she shook her head frantically. “Mkay. Good.” He slowly removed his hand from her face, and Mallory sat deathly still for what was probably only a few seconds before she scrambled to get up, her attempt to get away being faulted by having the back of her jacket grabbed, and she was yanked back.

“You suck at escaping. I’d let you try again but I need to talk to you.” “What could you possibly want from me??!”

As a result of Mallory’s response, he seemed to roll his eyes, huffing a sigh. “Listen. I’m here to help you, well not you specifically but I’m trying to help you race out, and a little birdy told me that a maker named Ulthane was tryin to find em. Are you with him?”

…well, she HAD been, but…what if she just said no?

“…well, I was with him, I just escaped the tree- ““well now why would you do that?” “I gotta find my family, they gotta be alive still, I mean I’ve lasted a while” He sorta just…stared at her for a moment, before making a sound that she was 90 percent sure was a laugh of some sorts. “I’ll give it to you; you’re a hopeful one. Listen, it’s a damn miracle you’re still alive, and I’d like to help keep your race alive. So, if you go back to the tree, I’ll come with you. What if your family turns up there and you’re gone off looking for them, hm?”

Mallory pictured it in her head, another deep sense of dread hitting her. What IF they showed up and she wasn’t there?? What if she killed herself trying to look for them when they would’ve shown up inevitably??? Mallory grimaces a bit, narrowing her eyes at the stranger. “…don’t use em against me like that” “You humans are an awful stubborn lot; it’s the only way to get you guys to listen most of the time.” He slapped his knees before standing up, pulling her up with her good arm. “I need your help real quick though…I need to blend in with you guys. How many are you at the tree?” Mallory’s mind was still recovering from being yanked up, but she stuttered out a response. “I-I’m the only one, they were talkin’ about me bein the only one Ulthane didn’t find…dead.” The freaky-mask man exhaled what sounded like a sigh, and he nodded. “M’kay, that can work. Now, I do have a human appearance, but I need some help to know if it could get me in that tree.” Mallory looked him up and down, before nodding slowly, her eyebrows furrowing together. Sure…sure this was fine. He hadn’t killed her yet, and he seemed friendly enough. But what if this was ANOTHER sick game?? No, it couldn’t be…he could’ve killed her on the spot, hell he could’ve killed her from a mile away considering the guns he had on his waist. “…well let’s see it then?” She watched in mild horror as his body shifted, it looked like his body was folding into itself like some sick hell-born origami, her eyes couldn’t keep up until what stood before her was…a human man, his beard thick and a bit unkempt, his eyes still carrying that hawk-like look. He was dressed in what looked like a trench coat, a hood over his head and with jeans and boots, but it was a little too…clean looking. “…too clean looking, you gotta dirty it up a bit more, I mean look at my clothes-” Mallory gestured to herself, now noticing how…sad she looked. She herself was wearing a trench coat, but it was worn and torn at the edges, stained with dirt and blood and God knows what else. Her jeans weren’t much better, the spots around her ankles and knees were wearing down and stained with dirt, and the one time she had gotten REALLY injured was a cut across her jean leg, stained with red, she had done a shoddy job of patching it back up fully.  The stranger must’ve seen how her expression fell, and he let out a laugh. “Yeah, you’re not the most appealin’ looking yourself, but I get your point.” He said this as he crouched down, gathering the dust-like stuff on the ground and rubbing it across his torso, glancing back up at her. “How long have you been outta the tree?” “I left this morning, maybe…an hour ago? I donno, it was still dark out when I left.” She found herself a bit more at ease now that he looked like a human, she hadn’t talked to a human in months. Mallory watched him look around, and he started to head to the “exit” (a hole in the wall), and she followed, nearly stumbling over herself as she followed him outside. “If its been an hour, no doubt Ulthane already knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was tearing through the damn city tryin to find you.” Mallory followed him, glancing down at her makeshift cast, and she exhaled a sigh. “That sounds...rather frightening, there’s three of those…giants at the tree, Ulthane… Uhh…Atmeas, and Vawula.”  

“Those ‘Giants’ are Makers.” ...and that was the only response she was gonna get?? What the hell is a “Maker”? Apparently, that’s what those three were. She was gonna ask him what that meant, but her thoughts froze (along with her entire body) when a thunderous voice hit her, loud and very jarring from behind the two of them. “MALLORY!!” She watched as the stranger turned to look, but she herself kept still, deathly still, it felt like her soul had left her body. No doubt that was Ulthane, that was the loudest he had heard him be, and that was the first time he said her actual name instead of ‘lass’ or something of the sort, hearing the loud, earth-shaking approach of a runnning maker.  “oh god I’m done for- “

Mallory’s final prayers were abruptly cut off as his fingers quickly closed around her torso, gripping her with just enough force to be uncomfortable as she was quickly yanked up, her stomach flipping from the sudden movement, her arm pinned to her side as she was turned to face him.

She felt her entire body lock up, her heart nearly stopping when she saw Ulthane’s expression. His eyes were full of some sort of anger she couldn’t quit put her finger on, his eyebrows furrowed into a pissed-off expression, his teeth bared. This was the first time she had noticed how…scary his teeth looked.

“ARE YOU TRYIN’ TA KILL YOURSELF LASS?! WHY IN HELL DID YA LEAVE THE TREE??"

Mallory flinched back, scared to look away from him as she tried to shrink under his furious look, almost as if she were trying to hide in his hands.

“IF YOU HAD GOTTEN YERSELF KILLED, WHY I WOULD’VE- “

He seemed to trail off, his eyes locking onto hers for a moment, and she watched in real time as his angry expression seemed to slowly melt, his angry eyes softening a bit and his furrowed eyebrows slowly grew less tense. Mallory squirmed a bit in his grip, his hands slowly loosening, but not letting go. One of his hands did slip away though, rubbing his eyes as he inhaled real slow.

In a rather pathetic attempt to get his attention off of her, she tried to free one of her arms, almost immediately shutting up when she stuttered, but she pushed on. “I-I-I…. I found someone else, another human-?” Ulthane let his hand fall from his face as he turned to look at…she didn’t actually know his name, and he spoke in a much, much more tired-sounding tone.

“What’s yer name lad?”

“Jones.”